Iran has resumed rail services on key routes after repairing tracks damaged during the war with Israel and the United States, state media reported on Monday.
Authorities have started reconstruction work in recent days on bridges, railway lines and other infrastructure hit during nearly 40 days of fighting. A fragile ceasefire has remained in place since Wednesday.
In the northwestern Azerbaijan region, rail services have restarted from Tabriz to the capital Tehran and to Mashhad in the northeast.
“These trains have resumed service after an interruption of four to five days,” said Alireza Soleimani, director general of railways in the region, according to the state-run IRNA news agency.
He added that the Tehran–Tabriz–Van route also resumed, with a train departing for Van in Turkey using repaired tracks.
A railway bridge near Qom, south of Tehran, reopened on Saturday after reconstruction that lasted less than 40 hours, said Khosrow Samari, deputy governor of Qom province, according to Tasnim news agency.
Tasnim also published footage on Friday showing a train crossing the Yahya Abad bridge in Kashan, in central Isfahan province.
“After rapid reconstruction, the first train passed over the Yahya Abad Bridge today,” the agency said, adding the bridge had been targeted in a US-Israeli attack on Tuesday.
In Tehran, residents reported that authorities have cleared debris quickly from damaged sites. Severely damaged buildings have been covered or cordoned off, in some cases with Iranian flags.
Government spokeswoman Fatemeh Mohajerani said on Sunday that rebuilding damaged structures could take between three months and two years.
She added that more than 125,000 buildings have been damaged since the war began, most of them residential, along with schools, hospitals and other civilian facilities.
